


none of these will bring disaster

by kathryne



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Moral Ambiguity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 13:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17044625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathryne/pseuds/kathryne
Summary: "I have lost two jobs, a husband, and a best friend because of you."But what else has Eve lost?  Does she even know?





	none of these will bring disaster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merryghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/gifts).



> Wishing you a very happy Yuletide, merryghoul! It was a pleasure to get to play around in Eve's head, and I hope you enjoy the result.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.  
\- Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art"

*

After, Eve’s never sure how she manages the moments just following Oksana’s disappearance. She comes back to herself, alone again, in the middle of the flat. Agnès is gone; Eve wrestled a few more answers from her, a few more leads to follow, cities and names and dates that might mean something, if Eve can only work out what. 

And now she's gone, and Oksana is gone, and Eve is alone. She throws the bolt on the door and wanders back through the hallway. Her heart is still pounding, no matter how many deep breaths she takes to try and calm herself. The scent in the air is cloying, the copper tang of blood mixed with the flat sweetness of spilled champagne, the hot, dry powder of shots fired, and under it all something musky and spicy she thinks might be Oksana’s perfume. 

“Shit,” she says out loud. The word disappears into the shadows gathering in the corners. It makes her feel a little better. A little less alone. 

“Shit,” she says again, louder, then louder still. “Goddamn son of a bitch _asshole_ of an assassin! _Shit!_ ” She kicks at the bloody duvet where it trails on the ground. There's a metallic clunk as her boot connects with something, sending it zipping across the floor to ricochet off a chair leg and come to a stop amongst scattered cosmetics, spinning slowly. 

Eve stares at it. 

It's a switchblade. 

It's the switchblade. The one she stabbed Oksana with. The mother-of-pearl handle that had been so smooth and cool against Eve’s thigh is dark now, mottled with drying blood. 

It's not only the blade that's bloody, Eve realises. Her hands are tacky, and when she goes to wipe them on her trousers her inner thighs are damp and cold. Oksana’s blood, from where she stabbed her, and then straddled her, driving the blade in deeper, feeling it move as she moved, watching the mockery drain from Oksana’s face. Wondering if this was what Oksana felt when she did a job. 

Eve shudders and scrubs her hands harder against her trousers, trying to scrape the blood off on the rough fabric. 

“Bet _Oksana_ doesn't get creeped out by a little blood,” she sneers, still whistling in the dark. “Bet she never gets guts on her designer clothes. No saliva on the McQueen. No brains on the Burberry. Bet she's got a special bubble bath to get rid of the smell, and a fancy dress to wear out to a celebratory dinner after each kill, and…”

Eve pauses. 

Slowly, she looks up at the wardrobe, its doors still hanging askew. 

“Well, I can't go out covered in blood, can I?” she tells the empty flat. She strides back into the bedroom, her shoes crunching glass underfoot, stopping only, in an impulse she doesn't quite understand, to pick up the switchblade again. 

She hasn't left much in the wardrobe, but she grabs a few things, then kicks her boots off outside the washroom. In her socks, she walks softly across the tile floor. The bathtub still sickens her with its extravagance. It reminds her of a trip she and Niko took for their first wedding anniversary - or was it their second? Early on, anyway, back when they thought that was what they should enjoy. The tub there had gilded taps in the shape of swans; she remembers she laughed about wringing their necks to control the water. Niko rolled his eyes, but fondly, or at least she thought so at the time. 

Eve sits on the lip of the tub and reaches over to turn on the taps. The gush from the koi’s mouth startles her. She can imagine Oksana sitting here, elegant in the vibrant silk dressing gown she’d had in her wardrobe - now soaking up a puddle of champagne in the bedroom - but Eve just feels grubby and awkward and too damn old for a pink bathtub in a fancy Paris flat. 

“Whatever,” she mutters, clicking the switchblade down on the edge of the tub with fake authority and leaning over to grab the stopper. 

Oksana doesn't have bubble bath. She has bath oils, and Eve goes through them slowly, smelling each before settling on a citrus scent. She dollops it into the rising water, and then, before she can talk herself out of it, she stands and strips off her clothes and slips into the tub. 

There's a small ceramic seashell in the corner, holding a scattering of hair ties, and Eve piles her hair on top of her head before leaning back. She feels better right away; the sharp clean smell of oranges blots everything else out and she inhales, exhales, lets her shoulders drop. She scrubs with soap and nail brush until her fingers are pink and tender and there's no blood left in the creases of her nails, and she runs a face flannel over her thighs, rougher than she needs to be, until there's no trace of what she's done. 

Except the switchblade. Eve picks it up gingerly from the ceramic and looks at it for a long moment. What else, she wonders, has this blade done? How many other people have bled on it, and how many are dead now? She dips the blade into her bathwater and swishes it around. A little cloud of pink forms, then swirls away. She runs her thumb along the handle, the flat of the blade, then lifts it up, dripping but clean. 

Could this be the blade that started it all - this whole clusterfuck of a mission? It's sharp enough, Eve knows. It went into Oksana’s gut so easily. Just a little resistance, a little push, and then in. It could've been this knife that darted in and out of Kedrin’s femoral artery back in Vienna, so quickly he didn't even notice, so quickly almost no one realised what it meant… until Eve. 

Only a few weeks ago. So much has happened it seems like years. But no, it's all recent enough that Eve’s still got - not a scar, nothing that permanent, but a thin pink line on her thigh where she took a knife to her own leg, wondering how much pressure she needed to pierce her skin on purpose. 

Funny that it was so much easier to do to someone else. 

She lifts her leg out of the water, propping it on the edge of the tub. Her skin is pink from the heat and she can barely make out the remnant of the cut. She places the switchblade alongside it and tilts her head, considering. It's so tiny. The switchblade is bigger, but not by much. Such a little thing, to do so much damage. 

Or maybe this was the knife that took Bill’s life. 

Leaning back, Eve lets the blade drop to clatter against the pink fucking tile. She doesn't know whether she should feel worse that she stabbed someone or that she didn't finish the job. 

The water’s cool when Eve gets out. She leaves the tub full, leaves her clothes on the floor - she'll never want to wear them again, and if Oksana ever comes back here, well. Eve's not above leaving a message, even if she's not sure what she means it to say. 

She takes her time with the clothes she's salvaged, picking through them until she ends up with something that almost fits, a sleeveless black and white top and grey pinstriped trousers. The trousers won't stay up without a belt and the top is baggy, but the fabrics slide against her skin, soft and luxurious. She touches up her makeup and shoves her boots back on. They don't go with the outfit, which makes her feel better. 

It's dark in the rest of the flat now, but Eve moves through it as though she's lived there for years, finding the light switch unerringly so she can grab her bag and her parka. Motion catches her eye and she swings, only to see her reflection in the vanity mirror. Her heart’s pounding again, adrenaline rushing through her, and anger and bravado boil up inside her until she wants to puke, or scream, or -

She marches across the room and plants her hands on the vanity, glaring at her reflection like she's facing down Oksana herself. “Listen,” she spits. “I'm coming to find you. I did it once. I can do it again. I'm going to find you, and when I do… I'm going to do it right this time. Because that's what I want too.” She grins at herself in the mirror, feral and surprising. “I wanna do my job… _Villanelle_.”

With that, she spins and walks out, head high. On her way she grabs the silk bomber jacket that's hanging by the door, shrugging it on to cover her top. She winds her own green zebra-patterned scarf around her neck and slams the door behind her. In her pocket, the switchblade is smooth and clean again. Eve rests her fingertips on it as she leaves the building, then raises her hand to hail a cab.


End file.
